It's the Little Things

I was puttering in the kitchen a minute ago when a potted plant outside caught my eye.  The pesky squirrels have been busy gathering walnuts from the tree above and ground near by the plant.  In their frenzy they knocked the plant over.  Annoyed at the interruption I headed outside to set it right.  
As I turned back towards the house I was greeted by the darting and hovering of a tiny hummingbird visiting the patch of impatiens blooming at my feet. Had those squirrels, my arch nemisizes and declared enemies, not bumped into the plant and tipped it over I would not have stepped outside at the precise minute the hummingbird arrived.  I stood quietly for a matter of minutes while the hummingbird tasted the sweetness of each pink flower in the bed, flitted on to sample the plants filling the patio, and then headed out to the garden for a dessert of pumpkin blossom nectar before journeying on to brighten someone else's day.
I have to thank those dog-gone squirrels for helping me shift my focus from the annoyances I see in the distance to all the positive little things that surround me in abundance.

Ten Things of Thankful

Nature

Particularly the hummingbird

And the squirrels--though I recognize that they still believe they have squatters' rights to my garden, and we will tangle again

The anticipation of watching tomatoes grow riper on the vine (slowly) each day

The lesson of patience taught in a garden

Blessed rain that has fallen on our parched earth this week

The deep and restful sleep that can be had during a rainstorm

The tinges of orange beginning to show on the pumpkins

A break in the intense heat and humidity

And the delight found in a plant that unexpectedly blooms in hearts

Make Lemonade TToT

Life has been crazy lately.  Too many things to get done in too little time.  Spring refused to spring for far too long. A couple weekends ago though we didn't really have the time or energy, we slipped away to view Tulips at Twilight at the local botanical gardens.  Many of the tulips had refused to bloom due to unseasonably cold weather, so the parks people sprinkled light displays throughout the garden instead--a visible example of the philosophy that when life gives you lemons, you should make lemonade.  The result soothed my soul.

Ten Things of Thankful

Beauty

People willing to work to improve life for us all

Truth

Community

Gardens

Actual spring finally arriving

Respite

Light

Vision

Love

Patience

Prompt: Select a picture from a previous April

I have been so frustrated with the spring that just won't spring this year.  Winter clings for dear life when all I want is a lawn scattered with colorful tulips and blossoming trees.  I had nearly come to believe that we would never see spring this year when I came across this post which tells how I felt these same feelings in 2013.  The good news is that I wrote another post about a week to ten days later celebrating the flowers that filled my yard. Maybe spring 2018 really is just around the corner.

Wiping sleep from my eyes I grab my phone and pull up Accuweather.  The screen displays a temperature barely above freezing and the words, “It’s much colder than you’d like.”

I am so ready to feel the dirt in my fingers, to breathe in its rich smell of life. I’m ready to stroll the neighborhood and linger under the blooms of the crabapple on the corner.  I dream of the heady perfume from the row of lilac bushes on 19th Street.  I want to see the promise held in the blooms on the fruit trees out back.  Instead, I satisfy myself puttering amid the potted plants and seedlings which line the countertop of the mudroom.  I look through the windows and imagine the beauty waiting to emerge outside knowing spring would still my restlessness.

My mind drifts to other potential things waiting to blossom in my life.  My temporary job has been offered to me permanently.  I didn’t anticipate the offer and am not at all certain yet what my best response would be.  All three of my kids are sifting through options and potential plans to determine where they will be this fall.  Their decisions will affect the courses of their lives and might take some as far away as Paris.  So much potential lies waiting to make itself known in our lives.  Anxious to know the answers, I fidget through days that feel suspended in time.

Every season brings its own lesson if we are willing to learn.  The lesson of Spring 2013 would appear to be patience.

Spring Bouquet

I recently drove halfway across the country from Kansas to North Carolina.  I had looked forward to the drive anticipating budding trees, green fields, and wild flowers.  I was surprised to find that spring was not springing anywhere along my route.  Maybe my return trip will be more colorful.  Meanwhile, I have to be content with these photos of flowers from a springtime past.

Garden flowers circa Spring 2013

 I cut a fist full of flowers in the garden the other day, picking ones I liked without a thought about what might go well together.

One by one I dropped each stem into a glass of water surprised how well they harmonized, each color complimenting the next. None of them competed, drowning out the others in a bid for attention.  Instead, the presence of one made the next all the more beautiful.

There is a lot we could learn in the garden.

Surprise, because there was no Spring yet.

Sunflowers

Friends recently sent bouquets of flowers to my church in memory of my mom.  Included with several kinds of flowers were these amazing sunflowers.  They practically glow when the sun hits their petals.

The humble sunflower is a fitting tribute to my mom.  It lacks the sophistication of many flowers yet has a simple beauty that is unmistakable.  Though some consider it weed-like, its infectious spirit brings accolades from others.  It is the Kansas state flower.

It keeps its face towards the sun; even as the sun shifts through the sky the sunflower follows it soaking in all the light it possibly can.  Scientists call this tendency heliotropic.  Thinking of this I realize my mother was a heliotrope.

(Originally shared in 2012, but posted again on Kansas Day 2018.)

I Love June

I love June!  School is done for the year, and I feel a sense of accomplishment as I wrap up a few final details on my To-Do List at work. I renew my mental and physical energy with rest, reading, and puttering around the house. The days are warm and bright without being oppressively hot.  Next month you will find me hiding indoors from heat and humidity, but now I stroll through the yard and neighborhood daily.  The lawn is green and the flowers bright.  My spirits are lifted.  Best of all June brings the gift of time.  Time to tackle projects that have weighed heavily on my mind.  Time to hang out with people I love.  Ah, June, I am glad you are here.

TToT

Changing Seasons

It has been too long since I made a list of things for which I feel grateful.  It isn't hard to do this time of year.  I love the fickle days of early spring.  Sunshine and eager blossoms one day, gusty gales that chill to the bone the next.  The perfect season for a heart that is never quite ready to let go while simultaneously looking ahead tingling with anticipation.  

For sunshine and blossoms, and wind that causes the branches high in the tall old oak trees out front to sway.  For first buds and hints of green replacing brown.  Clouds that float across the pale blue sky. For rain and the smell of the earth waking up. The first morning the sweet chirping of birds registers on my mind.  For all the hallmarks of an early spring day,  I am deeply thankful.

TToT

TToT: Kansas State Flower

Last weekend we traveled to Western Kansas and then to Oklahoma.  Dotting the shoulders of the highways were bunches of sunflowers; not the designer dinner-plate-sized ones seen at the florist, but the smaller ones of my childhood.  In fact, I couldn't remember seeing such plentiful patches of these sunshiny blooms since I was a child.

I had begun to wonder if this resurgence was a natural phenomenon in response to the end of the drought that has plagued the state for the better part of the last decade or if the highway department had a hand in it.  When we crossed the Kansas/Oklahoma state line and the sunflowers disappeared, I felt I had my answer.

Google directed me to an article on KDOT's plan to seed highway shoulders with native flowers and grasses in 2012.  There was a movement at that time to return original prairie plant life to the roadsides.  In this way the state would save money on the maintenance and mowing of grass.  Wildlife habitats would be restored, and though the article didn't mention it, the beauty of the plains would be enhanced.

Reading the article I couldn't help but think how many of our attempts at progress fall short in the end.  I grew up in the era when these very spaces were replanted in grass that was kept groomed and civilized.  The result was a uniform look no matter where you were in the state, and to some degree even the country.  This blandness was retained at a good deal of cost and effort.  

I wonder if the biggest cost could it have been our regional identities.  I knew as a kid that the sunflower was our state flower.  I saw sunflowers along side the roads and scattered in the fields.  It was easy for me to imagine those who came to Kansas before me watching their golden heads turning to follow the sunshine as they soldered on across the plains.

I like the unruly grasses and flowers that bob and sway in the Kansas wind.  The countryside seems softer, more like home than it did when it was manicured and bland.

I take comfort in the knowledge that we don't have to try so hard.  That there is wisdom in the original plan, and nature can most often heal itself if we will just stay out of the way.

TToT

I'm feeling thankful for my home state, for the prairie, the grasses, the flowers, the wind, the wide open spaces, and the chance to be out in them this week.

TToT: Stop and Smell the Roses

In a week where an American Senator was booed for advising listeners to vote their conscious, I thought I might need to dig deep for ten things to feel thankful for.  It wasn't so hard in the end.  

I started with a little binge watching of The West Wing as an antidote to the actual political situation I had been watching.  The writing on that show always makes me feel better.  Sometimes a little denial and escapism is just what the situation calls for.
I wrapped up another twenty-four hour drive to return home safe and sound.  There was a lot to see along the way.  Gas prices are down, and it was my fist trip in my smaller, more fuel efficient car.  
I got time with all of my kids this week, had a chance to catch up with my husband after his recent mission trip, and saw extended family at the 3rd birthday party of my niece's daughter.
I still have a few more days of summer break before I have to return to work.  I am savoring those days.
I have also been savoring vine ripened tomatoes this week.

Ten good things are sprinkled in my list--simple things, things that shouldn't be taken for granted but often are.  The kind of things that are rediscovered on a week where I have to look closely for the roses to stop and smell.

Ten Things of Thankful

TToT: My Iris Period

I am loving the flowers this spring.  I just walk in circles around the yard looking at them like a smitten teen. 
A hail storm was heading to town on Tuesday evening.  Afraid that my iris display would soon be floral confetti I ran through rain drops snapping photos of them.  I felt like a kid again.  Then while the tornado sirens kept me in the basement I entertained myself with the BeFunky photo editor.  Wednesday morning revealed that the irises weathered the storm.  
And in other iris news...The Lions Club is providing glasses for one of my students.  I spent over a year trying to find a source for financial help to get this little guy glasses.  Finally, the Lions Club said yes, but he has been on a waiting list for the past five months because need is so great.
Having watched this student squint and strain to see the screen at the front of the classroom for such a long time before I found a solution, I became keenly aware of how a decent pair of glasses can be life changing.  I personally have a ridiculous array of spectacles to choose between (thankful).  This experience at work inspired me to whittle down my number of eye glasses by donating my excess.  Lenscrafters stores everywhere accept used eyeglasses and work with One Vision to distribute the eye wear around the globe.  Ah, feels good.
Three thankfuls to go...lets count the irises I most love to look into:  two browns (well four if we are counting eyes, two if we are counting people), greens and blues.

http://a-fly-on-our-chicken-coop-wall.blogspot.com

TToT: Beauty in a Week That Was Not Pretty

It was a hard week at work--abuse, theft, self-harm.  Ugh.  There is so much pain in the world.  It is hard sometimes to hear the stories the young people have to tell me.  I always look for beauty in the world as a counter-balance to what I see in my work.  This week I had to look extra hard, but here are ten sources of beauty for which I am thankful:

Babies:  their laughter, smooth skin, soft hair, and sweet scent

Friendship

The love of my family

 Flowers

Buds on Plants and Trees

Roof over my head

Good food on the table

And the opportunity found in tomorrow

When maybe we can come a little closer 

to making things right.

(Look at that!  I found 11 things to be thankful for when I wasn't sure I could even find one.)

https://summ

at2thinkon.wordpress.com/2016/03/05/ten-things-of-thankful-142-sick-note-10thankful/